Canada has just one gold to date, but the athletes are doing just fine, thanks

Bruce Arthur, Postmedia Olympic Team08.09.2012

Carol Huynh of Canada celebrates her bronze medal in the women's 48kg at the London 2012 Olympic Games, August 08, 2012Jean Levac/Postmedia Olympic Team
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Canada added to its medal haul Wednesday with bronze medals from Mark Oldershaw and Carol Huynh and a silver from Adam van Koeverden. As Bruce Arthur writes, no one is complaining, but another gold would look mighty good about now..
/ Tyler Anderson / National Post

Carol Huynh of Canada celebrates her bronze medals in the women's 48kg at the London 2012 Olympic Games, August 08, 2012.Jean Levac
/ Postmedia Olympic Team

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London - We are doing fine, thanks. We’re okay. Before the Olympics began Canada established a medals goal of top 12 in the world, and with four days left in the 2012 Olympics Canada has 14 medals, and sits alone in 12th. We are three medals ahead of Hungary, and one behind the Netherlands. Hey, not bad.

But it feels like something is missing, isn’t there? Canada has four silvers, nine bronzes — which, all alone, would tie us for 16th in the world — and a single gold medal, belonging to trampolinist Rosannagh MacLennan. We’re winning parts of the podium. We’re having some trouble with the top step.

Now, that’s not to discount Canadian performances so far; a medal means being in the top three in the world, and it’s a big world. Wednesday we saw kayaker Adam van Koeverden win silver in the K-1 1,000-metre, and deliver a beautiful paen to sports. We saw 2008 gold medallist Carol Huynh wrestle her way to bronze at 48 kilograms, and seem thrilled. We saw canoeist Mark Oldershaw win bronze in the men’s C1-1,000-metre, and he talked about how he has been dreaming of this since he was a child, looking up at the stars.

But winning gold just feels better, and it hasn’t happened much, yet. Watch the British roll up 22 gold medals, and you see a nation in ecstasy. Watch China and the United States engage in a relatively quiet sociopolitical struggle for global athletic superiority — at least until China repossesses all the American medals after the Games, as collateral for monies owed — and you hear their anthems at every turn. Read the medal tables as ordered by the International Olympic Committee, which prizes wins over everything, and Canada is 30th.

Gold means winning, and it’s fun. Australia has only got two gold medals, one behind neighbouring New Zealand, and the embarrassment was such that the Sydney Daily Telegraph arrogantly combined the nations in its medal tables, calling it ‘Aus Zealand’. Of course, when New Zealand briefly touched the top 10, an Australian TV station reportedly started listing a top nine.

And as some of us write stories about our most beautiful losers, we get e-mails from the relatively unhinged excoriating excuses, demanding results, deriding Canada as a nation of also-rans. Maybe Vancouver mucked about with some people’s expectations; maybe some Canadians have spent previous summers stranded at the cottage, unable to watch the Olympics.

This, you see, is not what we do. Canada has won three gold medals at every Games but one — Barcelona, where O Canada was played seven times — since the Soviet boycott in 1984. Coming into the Games you could have said mountain biker Catharine Pendrell, the reigning world champion, was a solid favourite, and she doesn’t ride until Saturday.

And after that, you were dealing with varying shades of hope. Maybe van Koeverden. Maybe cyclist Tara Whitten. Maybe a surprise, here or there.

It hasn’t happened yet, and the question now is how we will finish. Wrestler Tonya Verbeek has two medals in her career, and she’s still coming; her teammate Leah Callahan has potential, too. Marathon swimmer Richard Weinberger is coming off a victory in the last World Cup before the Olympics and won the test event in London, and he swims Friday. Karine Sergerie, who won silver in Beijing in taekwondo, has yet to spar. Women’s soccer plays for bronze on Thursday, and synchronized swimming has yet to do the big reveal.

Hell, Damian Warner of London, Ont., a decathlete ranked 24th in the world, is third after five events, with personal bests in three of them. He could be the new Derek Drouin, who grabbed one of the three bronzes awarded in high jump. Boy, we’re owning bronze. It’s actually an alloy of copper and tin, but it’s still just a couple shades off from gold.

So yes, it has been, on the whole, an underwhelming sort of Games. No, we have not experienced too many moments of national ecstasy. Yes, the women’s soccer team, and Simon Whitfield, and Dylan Armstrong, and Clara Hughes — well, yes, they all sort of broke our hearts.

But we’re doing okay. We’re doing fine. Sometimes in this crazy world, that’s all you can ask.

barthur@nationalpost.com

twitter: bruce_arthur

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Canada has just one gold to date, but the athletes are doing just fine, thanks

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